Amsterdam
Well not really. Technically we’re in Groningen, which is two hours away. For Eurosonic-Noorderslag.
Funny how you can get in a tube and end up halfway across the world. You’re reading your domestic papers and suddenly you emerge through the fog into a foreign land.
And it is foggy. Reminds me of nothing so much as driving on I-91 from Connecticut to Massachusetts. At this exact time of year. During the January thaw. When it’s raining and miserable. I like that. It’s romantic. It never rains in Southern California, but when it does it pours, but that’s pretty rare. But on the east coast, there’s all kinds of weather. The prognosticators do their best, but the temperature could drop twenty degrees in a matter of minutes and what was supposed to be rain could be snow and vice versa.
What do I know about Amsterdam…
It was funny driving down the highway, so much comes back. Maybe not enough hard core facts, but the process of learning. All those days spent in school, staring out the window at bleak days like these.
They told us there were windmills.
And there were a plethora of them. I only saw one old school model, but there were endless towers with the big turbine blades. I always thought these messed up the landscape, but what’s worse, this blight or the greenhouse gases that are gonna ruin the ozone layer with the end result we’ll be burnt up?
And speaking of fossil fuels… I was stunned how small the cars were. I mean really tiny. Kind of like a cartoon. Hard to rationalize those behemoths we drive in the U.S. We’ve got to ride high, in our SUVs, because… Because? Because we’re into image and fashion and..?
And the driver told us the endless plain upon which we were coasting used to be under water. Nigh near twenty years ago. It was all coming back, how the Netherlands was beneath sea level. That’s the story of the dikes, right?
But I was disappointed the canals weren’t frozen. That was one of the big books growing up, "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates". I wanted to lace up a pair of blades and go cruising through town under my own power. Alas, that will not happen. Although the driver said the canals were frozen back in December, but there was too much snow atop the ice, making skating both daunting and unsafe.
But speaking of traveling under your own power, I’ve never seen so many bicycles as I’ve seen in Groningen. Supposedly it’s a student town, but I saw gray-haired ladies pedaling in the rain. I didn’t get the impression their mode of transportation was purely economic, that they couldn’t afford cars, but that it was more practical, you could go anywhere you wanted and park wherever you wanted and you did save the cost of fuel.
And what always stuns me in Europe is the electronic signs at the petrol stations. Seems much more efficient, they can change the price effortlessly. I know, I know, I said "petrol". But I love how they use different words for the same things. Like the baggage carousel was the "belt". And when you emerged from the baggage area, the train was right there. If only this was the case at LAX, if this was only so in so many U.S. metropolises. But no, we’re entitled to drive our cars and get stuck in traffic and…
I was reading a fascinating book on the plane. I almost wanted the flight to go on ten more hours so I could keep reading. That’s what’s great about a good book, it calls to you, it waits for you, it’s there to satisfy you. But every good book ends. You can play your records endlessly, but after one time through a book it’s just not the same.
And the book I’m reading is entitled "Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel". By Gary Shteyngart. I downloaded it to my Kindle because I just read too many good things about it, even though I didn’t like the blurb and I don’t like books set in the future.
What I love about books is most people don’t read ’em. So those inflamed by reality don’t carp, because they’re out of the loop. Yes, they’re editing Mark Twain, but most books go unscathed. You open them up and you see truth and you’re positively thrilled, you feel like you’re not alone, that your whole life makes sense.
And the future in "Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel" is not that distant. Everybody’s got an iPhone-type device that allows you to call up anybody’s history. We’re almost there, privacy keeps eroding. And all the companies have merged, the airline is called UnitedContinentalDeltamerican and the United States is at war with Venezuela and it’s trying to recapture its glory. Yes, the mantra of United States citizens is it’s the greatest country in the world, and don’t you ever deny it. It’s like these "patriots" believe everybody outside the country’s borders lives in a hovel and survives on gruel. But so many world citizens are living just fine. And in so many other countries things are in certain ways better. But at least by traveling, you get insight, your horizons are broadened, just like going to elementary school and learning about windmills and…
How come we grow up with facts inserted into our brains and we end up somnambulant, chock full of irrelevancies we learned on TV? It’s like people reach their third decade and stop learning. Like learning is for losers.
But learning keeps you young. And alive. And wise.
So we’re resting up in anticipation of tonight’s inaugural dinner.
I don’t know what to expect. But this I know. Music is the universal language. And if you write a hit tune, you can visit lands far beyond your normal scope. Because people want to hear you, they want to touch you, they want to get closer to you.
And it was not so long ago that the music dominating the world was American. But no longer. Music has become Balkanized. It’s different in every territory. The days of making it worldwide have faded. Not for lack of trying. But marketing doesn’t sell great music so much as the music itself.
You may not be a banker. You may not have even gone to college. But if you can write and play the whole world is open to you. Get crackin’!
